Wanderfound

Parachutes work on Duna, but the atmosphere is low and thin, so you need more of them and they'll deploy frighteningly late. Slow down as much as you can before deployment (circularise a low orbit before descent, and come in at a very shallow angle to aerobrake on the way down), adjust the tweakables of your chutes to get them open as early as possible, use drogues before the main chute and be prepared to use a bit of thrust at the last moment before touchdown. And reinforce whatever you've attached the parachutes to: moar struts.

You don't have to be officially credentialed to get into a journal, but you do need to format it to the journal's standards and convince a group of peer reviewers that your paper is both competently written and makes a significant novel contribution to the field. Pick out a journal with a low Impact Factor that publishes on this topic, have a look at the other papers in that journal, and look up the submission process. If you need help, I'd be willing to have a look for you, but be prepared for any critique to be a bit ego-bruising. Peer reviewers are not gentle in their commentary. This is me: https://sydney.academia.edu/CraigMotbey

You've got the history exactly backwards. See above.

Medically retired. I had plenty of funding; the work at the core of my doctoral thesis alone pulled in half a million in grant money. Not that I was any good at politics (that was my Professor's specialty...), but I hit a relatively hot topic [1] at the right time and got in before there'd been any significant prior work on the subject. [1] 4-methylmethcathinone (AKA mephedrone); mechanism of action, toxicology and potential for addiction.

Thunderbird One, actually. The end result ended up diverging from the original concept a bit.

All the above is good advice, but also: practice, practice, practice. Once you get the hang of it you can do it purely by eyeball.

Generally agreed, but there's space for a middle ground as well. Some of the difficulty mods already use it: revert stays enabled, but there's a financial penalty if you use it. Think of it as the expense of running simulation testing.

Those are very heavy boosters; they need a good kick to get them clear. If the top is rotating in to strike the core, move the Sepratrons up so that they push the top away. And, as mentioned above, move them out a bit so that the Sepratron exhaust doesn't damage the core. If you place the Sepratrons right, you won't need to space out the boosters. And yes, there is a bug at the moment that makes the radial decouplers direct their force lower than it should be. But even without the partial bug fix mentioned above, properly placed Sepratrons will negate the problem. Incidentally, once you get the hang of Sepratrons, you can do all sorts of tricks with them. You can get your discarded boosters to do pretty acrobatics as they fall if you place them right.

I wouldn't value the Hippocratic Oath that highly, if I were you. If you look at the original text [1] you'll find that a major focus of it was on protecting the income of physicians rather than protecting the welfare of patients. Most of the ethical stuff is in there because it was common for physicians of the time to do the things that it forbids [2], and Hippocrates was attempting to promote his own students by claiming that they were less dodgy than all of the others. Its primary purpose was advertising. [1] This section in particular: "To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art; and that by my teaching, I will impart a knowledge of this art to my own sons, and to my teacher's sons, and to disciples bound by an indenture and oath according to the medical laws, and no others." [2] Included in the forbidden practices are using surgery to remove gallstones and performing abortions. There are valid reasons for modern medical schools to ditch it.

Historically speaking, "Doctor" is the Western equivalent of "Sensei" or "Sifu": it means "teacher". A (real, non-physician, PhD) doctor is someone that's had enough training at an academic discipline that they're qualified not just to do that thing (Master) but also to teach it to others (Doctor). Around the time of the Renaissance, there was competition between a few different factions in England and western Europe about who were the "real" healers. Physicians studied the theory of medicine, whereas the College of Barber-Surgeons (the "barber" thing was because in Medieval times, the local barber was the one guy who could be relied on to have a good sharp razor) had a more practical and empirical approach. Apothecaries were kind of in between the physicians and the surgeons. Village herbalists and midwives actually did the bulk of the hands-on care for most of the population, but they were generally ignored by the authorities on account of being mostly female peasants. Physicians went to University where they read (wildly inaccurate and lethally misguided) ancient Greek and Roman books about medicine, whereas Barber-Surgeons were trained by a hands-on apprenticeship. In an attempt to emphasise their academic credentials, the physicians started calling themselves "doctors", even though most of them were only Masters by normal university standards. It's a courtesy title; most PhDs will tell you that physicians aren't really doctors. This history is also why Anglosphere surgeons are called "mister" instead of "doctor". -- Dr Wanderfound, PhD.

So don't wait. I'd quite enjoy fighting to keep control of a rocket as it flew through a storm. Part of the reason I have EVE installed is because it's fun to come roaring down through the cloud layer blind only to realise that you're about to whack into the top of a mountain if you don't pull up in time. More to the point: anything like this should be implemented as a switchable difficulty option. Them that wants it gets it, them that don't won't.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89092-Kerbodyne-Scattershot-a-simple-and-easy-to-fly-beginner-s-SSTO-spaceplane This one can easily reach orbit with its tanks still half-full. It'd take a bit of modifying to make it into a probe-carrier, but it might be a useful place to start from. Pulling the goo pods and material bays should free up some weight capacity.

I'm limited in screenshots, because the part count is high enough to slow my computer to a crawl, so I've only taken it to orbit once just to make sure it works. I've got a few pics, but many of them are from slightly different versions that I went through while prototyping. But, since you asked:

There are medium-small diameter (unlimited length) cargo bays in Spaceplane Plus: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80796-0-24-Spaceplane-Plus-1-3 Apart from that, you're mostly down to waiting for the B9 update, fighting with the current version of B9, using Procedural Fairings (works okay, but you can't "close the door" afterwards) or hacking something together yourself from structural panels. If you get onto the design threads, you'll find assorted people doing creative things with landing-leg driven hydraulic doors. You can also get some decent functionality from open-air cargo bays:

Like the efficiency of air-breathing SSTOs, but can't be bothered with all that spaceplane stuff? Got a computer that can handle a moderately chunky part count? Have we got a deal for you... Ten turbojets and twenty RAPIERs provide all the power you could ever want. Who needs wings? In thrust we trust. Use the action groups rather than staging, and disable crossfeed on the docking port connecting the lifter to the cargo (self-propelled Rockomax 64 used here as an example) before launch. Action group 8 will disable the RCS on the cargo. Take it vertically to 10,000m then gradually pitch over to 30°. Keep the Vernors off until you need them. Cautious aerobraking is recommended before descent. Undoubtedly the silliest thing I've ever designed. Handle with care. https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwjph1dijhr8afn/Kerbodyne%20Elevator%20XS%20Stock.craft

BTW: anyone interested in the microgravity vestibular stuff should look at the work coming out of this lab: http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/humanfactors/?page_id=1445 They had the office next to mine back when I was a researcher; they'd occasionally borrow our rats for direct brain stimulation studies. They've done quite a bit of work on the Vomit Comet, and some of their experiments have gone up on NASA missions.

Well, keep in mind that the turbojet is supposed to be cutting-edge and top-of-the-line. Not just an SR-71, but an SR-71 equivalent that was designed in the 21st century rather than the 1960's. And, of course, it's a fun game about silly little dudes with big green heads. I'm not too bothered by the occasional bit of less than perfect realism. Extreme air-breathing speed and altitude is more about piloting and aerodynamics than air-hogging. I generally don't use more than one nacelle/ramscoop combo per engine. If you take the time, you can get a basic minimalist plane (one turbojet, two delta wings, two ramscoops, a tailfin, a cockpit and a type 1 fuselage) up to ridiculous height and speed (>30,000m, >2,000m/s). Slow ascent, minimal angle of attack, shut down all but one engine, throttle back as necessary and fly halfway around Kerbin while very slowly accelerating. You can kinda skip across the lower atmosphere if you do it right, with the engine constantly fluttering between flameout and just-barely-running.

If we had an answer, NASA'd be using it already. So far, the only methods we have for generating artificial gravity without making people constantly puke are to use an impractically huge centrifuge or maintain a constant 1G acceleration (not really possible without magical reactionless hyper-efficient thrusters). Spinning the ship is no use unless the ship is the size of a small town. It's a major problem for any future Mars mission. Extended exposure to microgravity causes adaptations in balance and vision. Eye movement is closely linked to the vestibular system; it's why we can keep our eyes steady when our heads are moving. These adaptations are fine so long as you stay in microgravity, but they're totally crippling once you come back down. For quite some time after returning to a non-microgravity environment, your sense of balance is roughly equivalent to someone with near-fatal alcohol poisoning, and your eyes constantly flick in random directions. I've seen footage of a Shuttle mission where the pilot almost flipped the thing onto its tail at the moment of touchdown, because his eyes chose that moment to go haywire. Astronauts generally spend their first week back on Earth throwing up and unable to stand. The first human on Mars is going to celebrate their achievement by having a good long lie-down.

You'll want to make your centrifuge big, then. As in "a kilometre or two wide". Small centrifuges set up Coriolis currents in your inner ears. In the memorable phrase of one research paper on the subject, this tends to be "explosively nauseogenic".

Useful interplanetary planning resources: http://ksp.olex.biz http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Category:Celestials Don't mind Regex too much. He has that line under his name for a reason.

Brain surgery's less tricky than you'd think, too. Largely a matter of steady hands and nerves. Surgeons are the jocks of medicine. Diagnosis and research is where the brainpower is.

Also: if you haven't got any SSTO spaceplanes up and running yet, I'd advise you to just try and make something that can reach orbit before you start messing around with cargo lifters. You should also get some use from what I've posted at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89643-SSTO-question?p=1334110&viewfull=1#post1334110 Use the example plane I've linked to there, take it for a spin to get a feel for the ascent requirements, then go into the SPH and tear the plane to pieces to see how it's built. And, as always: if you aren't already using FAR, I'd strongly recommend it. Planes are much more fun when they actually fly like planes.

There are a few ways to do it. The tricky bit is ensuring that the plane doesn't become asymmetrically balanced once you detach the probe. So, either a central cargo bay like this: Or a pair of detachable probes like this (they're the "missiles" covered by procedural fairings): I'd advise against trying to bolt them on top; it's almost impossible to maintain a balanced plane if you do that. You want the probe to be as close to CoM as possible, to minimise the change in balance after it detaches. You can also do some useful balance-maintaining trickery by pumping fuel from one tank to another.

What exactly is going wrong? Failure to lift, loss of control, breaking up in flight?

1) Have you unlocked the steering on your front gear? 2) Your rear gear is way too far back. Think of the gear as a pivot in a see-saw, with your CoM sitting on one end and your pitch-relevant control surfaces at the other end. Put the gear between the two. 3) Wing-mounted gear is dangerous unless you have very rigid wings (i.e. not too long, and heavily braced with struts). As the wing flexes, it alters the geometry of the gear, which messes up your steering. It's usually better to mount the gear to the fuselage. 4) Planes do not glide well under stock aero. Most flyers use FAR or NEAR. 5) It looks like you're using stationary winglets as your only yaw-relevant control surfaces. That helps to stabilise yaw, but it doesn't do anything to control it. Get some control surfaces or all-moving winglets up there. 6) Your CoL is too far behind your CoM. This makes it hard to lift the nose. CoL should be behind CoM, but only by a bit. Make the indicator spheres overlap. 7) SAS and RCS aren't just for rockets. A well-built plane doesn't need them, but they make things more forgiving while you're still working out how to do it.